Mitchell Museum partners with Western State Colorado University

The A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art is facing a dilemma common to many of today's small, non-profit art institutions: how do you properly care for, catalog and display a vast collection of art and artifacts with very limited financial resources and a lack of professionally trained staff? In search of a solution, the Mitchell Museum reached out to the American Museum of Western Art - Anschutz Collection in Denver, who put them in touch with instructors at Western State Colorado University’s newly offered Masters of Gallery Management and Exhibits Specialization (MGES) program (www.western.edu/mges). From the very first conversation, this connection would turn out to be a one-in-a-million alignment of the planets -a kind of match that would have much deeper ties than anyone could have imagined.

Western's MGES program was designed to train highly employable art gallery and art museum professionals through hands-on experiences, in combination with knowledge and theory directly applicable in the sector. Western had students who wanted professional art experiences and the Mitchell Museum needed professionally trained people to work with their collection. Moreover, Western is currently undergoing a major renovation of their art facility, which is also home to their campus gallery. You could say that it was just luck that the two organizations connected at the right time, but the improbable coincidences didn't stop there.

Dr. Heather Orr (Western Professor of Art History, Art Department Chair, and MGES Program Director) introduced the museum to Art undergraduate department and MGES supporter Ethel Rice. It turned out that Ms. Rice had lived in Trinidad and studied art at Trinidad State Junior College (TSJC) - but wait it gets even better -she was an art student of Arthur Roy Mitchell! Mitchell started the art program at TSJC in 1944, and he remained on the faculty until 1958.

Ethel Rice served as a librarian at Western State Colorado University for thirty-six years. In addition to being a librarian, Ethel is an art lover and has spearheaded the documentation, exhibition, secure display, and conservation of the university’s art collection. She and Heather Orr are working on a co-edited volume that will publish part of that collection, and that includes catalogue entries by Western art history students.

Ms. Rice was instrumental to the development of the MGES program, and worked with Orr to create a Grosland MGES visiting professorship and four Grosland MGES student scholarships from the Grosland fund, in her role as the fund representative with the WSCU University Foundation. Ms. Rice says, “I just love the students and really believe in this program. The reason I started this was to continue the Grosland's interest in teaching art galleries and museums by helping students in this field for the future.” She believes that the scholarships and visiting professorship will create a program unmatched in higher education and will help continue the Grosland’s legacy of fostering the arts.

The partnership between Western’s MGES program and the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art also means that Mitchell's teaching legacy has come full circle. Mitchell wrote, "If I merely break a trail for others who will surpass me I will be satisfied, and maybe the footprints of the one who showed them the way need not be rubbed out entirely". Ms. Rice has followed in Mitchell’s footsteps and now many more undergraduate and graduate students of Western's Art and MGES programs will walk in them as well.